The Buffalo News Tablet Apps for iPad and Kindle Fire, and Smartphone Apps Powered by Whiz

Oct. 10, 2012 - PRLog -- San Jose, California:  The Buffalo News, the largest in the group of newspapers owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE- BRK.A), announced that it is releasing tablet apps for the iPad and Kindle Fire, and new smartphone apps. These mobile apps are available for download in the respective app stores and are ready for use by their readers.

“As a part of our digital strategy, we are unveiling iPad and Kindle Fire apps and new iPhone and Android smartphone apps. After evaluating available mobile app solutions for technology maturity, quality of user experience and ease of customization, we selected Whiz Technologies as our vendor”, said Michael MaLoon, Digital Director at The Buffalo News. “I am very pleased with our working relationship with Whiz -- smart, efficient, solid technology, technical expertise, professionalism and on-time delivery. Best vendor relationship I have ever had on the digital side of newspapers.”

“We are pleased to be the vendor of choice and a part of the team delivering The Buffalo News mobile apps. These pay-wall-enabled mobile apps deliver a robust and engaging user experience leveraging state-of-the-art UI/UX technologies designed into the MobileNewsPack(TM) ”, says Nikhil Modi, founder and CEO of Whiz Technologies. “The publisher can control and configure the mobile apps from an intuitive and easy-to-use mobile dash board, e.g. provide for a “free to user” trial subscription period.”

MobileNewsPack(TM)

MobileNewsPack(TM) is a white-label mobile solution for newspaper industry, which Whiz will customize and deliver as a service to the publisher. A typical offering includes customized apps for iPhone, iPad, Android Smartphones, Android tablets and HTML5. Whiz plans to add mobile apps for new platforms as they become available. This makes the MobileNewsPack(TM) offering future-proof and relieves customers from ongoing mobile app development, upgrade, compatibility, and support concerns.

Key features included in the MobileNewsPack(TM):
1.   User interface (UI), designed for reading news on-the-go, can be customized to publisher’s UI specifications;
2.   Support for multiple content types -- breaking news, trending news, news categories, photo galleries, video clips, classifieds, obituaries, events and horoscopes;
3.   Mobile advertisement formats –- banner ads, interstitial ads and video pre-roll ads;
4.   Multiple Paid Content models supported -- digital subscription, all-access and in-app purchases;
5.   Mobile Analytics;
6.   Mobile dash board to configure and control app behavior and appearance; no need to resubmit app for app store acceptance;
7.   Future proof solution for publisher – continuous innovation with new UI templates and additional mobile platforms.

At the heart of MobileNewsPack(TM) is Whiz’s MediaFlow Content Normalization Engine, a key server technology developed and owned by Whiz.  MediaFlow ingests and normalizes content from publisher’s content management system (CMS) for delivery to supported mobile apps. This allows the publisher to focus on content generation, knowing that, in this MaaS deployment, Whiz is providing post-release app support for digital content distribution to publisher’s mobile apps.

Whiz Technologies introduced MobileNewsPack(TM) -- Mobile-Apps-as-Service (MaaS) solution -- for the newspaper industry earlier in 2012. Leveraging MobileNewsPack(TM), Whiz has released over fifty (50) mobile apps for its newspaper customers to various app stores.

“With MobileNewsPack(TM), Whiz is uniquely positioned to help publishers include mobile apps in their news distribution system and benefit from mobile growth”, says Nikhil Modi.

For additional information on Whiz and MobileNewsPack(TM) solutions, contact Whiz Sales at sales@whizti.com or call (408) 890-6450.

About Whiz Technologies

Based in San Jose, California, USA, Whiz Technologies is a leading provider of custom mobile apps, with a focus on delivering quality solutions on popular mobile platforms including Smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

Whiz Technologies, Inc.
2051 Junction Avenue, Suite 218, San Jose, CA 95131, USA
www.whizti.com